I would say make them yourself, but we've always made them that way. As for a button maker you can
search old threads and find many suggestions. I've had experience with the Badge-A-Minit handheld ones and in my experience they're a general pain. Hard to load, hard to press, and they don't work out 30% of the time even if you get them all lined up. However we recently invested in one of
these with the cutter and it works very well. We haven't screwed up a button yet and you can be working at a rate of 3 bpm (buttons per minute) within five minutes and can probably get an even higher bpm with more experience.